Re: edward halvorsen-looking for family
-
In reply to:
edward halvorsen-looking for family
9/29/99
I don't know if we have any connections, but many of the things you mentioned are very similar to my family. The basics: My father, Thomas Halverson, was born in 1913 in Yonkers, N.Y., to Thomas and Mildred (Grotte or Grote) Halverson. (Later, my father spelled his name Halvorsen for a time.) His father died when he was 2. He had three sibs, an older sister, Myrtle; older brother, George, and younger brother, Eddie. His mother gave Thomas and George to relatives to be raised. My father was raised by and aunt and uncle, George and Maggie (Margaret) Heiss. I'd always though Brooklyn, but information I've received this week shows they lived for a long time in Elizabeth, N.J. After my father graduated from high school (1931?), he served a two-year hitch in the Army, then another in the Navy. Should have got out late 1935 or very early 1936. He was living in Cranford, N.J., late in Jan. of 1936. He married a woman named Florence and they had a daughter about 1936 or 1937, named Diane. They divorced when Diane was about 8. My father left the East, came to Washington state and never looked back. He never allowed any of us to know his relatives, and only gave fractured accounts of his life (he was a very angry, rather violent man at times). I am looking for my half sister, Diane, and believe she would likely spell her birth name Halvorsen, as my father did in Jan. of 1936. He said that Eddie died in Normandy, but I have searched and never found any evidence of that. (My father did not always tell us the truth; in fact on his SS application, he falsified his name, spelling it Halvorsen, gave a false birth year and a false birthplace). We have his BC and know what is true; so did he. He died in 1981, and I've determined to find Diane. My father's sister, Myrtle, married and had children, but I don't know her married name. My father said that his older brother, George, changed his last name from Halverson to Martin. I very recently found my father and the people who raised him on the NJ Census for 1920. An uncle, Samuel Martinson, was also living with my father and the Heiss family. I've launched a full-scale search (w/o hiring anyone), and I'm determined to keep looking until I find my relatives.
I only have my father's word that his brother Eddie was raised by their mother; the children were definitely separated. And I've not found Eddie (or Eddy) on any records yet, including those who died in Normandy. In fact, I've searched all the WWII records for those who died from NJ and NY, and there is only one Halverson and one Halvorsen! And neither is Eddie. I would like to know when your Eddie died. I had always thought that my father grew up in Brooklyn, and I'm sure he at least intimated that he'd lived there. But at this point, I'm not sure; I've found him mostly in and around Elizabeth, NJ, which, by the way is very clost to Linden. I'd love to hear from you and compare notes. Tommi